


Act Naturally

by theweddingofthefoxes



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Strong Language, classic kylux bitching, death mention, kissin', minor character death: brendol hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 22:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10817802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes
Summary: Not long after the death of his father, novelist Armitage Hux decides to do something to get himself out of his rut: direct a community theater production ofA Midsummer Night's Dream. Enter local celebrity, model and (unsuccessful) TV actor Kylo Ren, who Hux is sure will be his worst nightmare. But, true to way of the Bard, romance just sort of happens to unsuspecting, bickering companions.





	Act Naturally

It wasn’t that Hux didn’t trust Phasma. It was just that…well…

"There's not going to be enough room in there for both of our egos," Hux complained.

"That's exactly why I cast him," Phasma answered, adjusting her scarf as a pair of businessmen opened the door of the Starbucks they were standing in. A gust of icy wind joined them inside. "It'll be a good project for you. Either you'll tame him or you'll have something new to write about."

"Yeah, well, the latter seems more likely."

The latter had better seem likely, Hux thought to himself. It had been two years since Hux had written anything of note, and he felt like he was just spinning his wheels. A few projects-- attempts at writing screenplays and plays, teaching for a semester and hating it all the while--had only made him feel worse. When Phasma asked him what he thought about maybe directing a production of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (community theater, nothing super fancy or technical, Shakespeare for dummies, that kind of thing), Hux had said yes right away. Maybe this was exactly the thing he needed for his own writing--a chance to help other people understand the classics. If nothing else, it would give him fodder, an idea for some story of his own.

He wondered when Phasma would start to regret her choice. Hux was not a particularly cuddly person and did not tolerate, as he put it, nonsense. Out of twenty-two student evaluations from his single, luckless semester at Silverpark Community College, fourteen had included the word 'scary'. 

But then again, theater types probably expected their director to be a bit of a cross between a tortured artist and a taskmaster, right? If that was the case, he was exactly what they were fearing. They'd probably tell themselves it was making them better as an actor, more resilient towards criticism, the way Hux had grit his jaw in every graduate-level writing workshop. They'd silently congratulate themselves and be excited they had the opportunity to work with the author-turned-director. 

Kylo Ren was probably not going to be anything like that, though.

How to categorize someone like Kylo Ren? A local--well, hero wasn't quite the right word at all, and neither was celebrity. But he was well-known. His mother had been a mainstay in county politics since she was hardly out of high school, and his father owned a popular bar in the center of town. Both his parents had made good money and they sent him to acting school, and Hux imagined they'd been regretting it ever since. The guy knew what a gym was and how to use it, so he'd landed a few commercials for things like cologne and menswear, and he had been on more pilots than a whore on an Air Force base. But none of those pilots had actually ever aired, so his TV career was entirely theoretical. Now he was living at home with mom and dad again while he figured out what to do, and when Phasma had held auditions, he'd jumped at the chance to show off, to prove he was the community's future Oscar winner once more. 

"By starring in a play put on by a complete amateur?" Hux had asked, dumbfounded, when Phasma informed him of all of this after the auditions.

"Look, the important thing is that people know your name. A lot of people know your name. A moth goes to the light and a slightly famous person goes to the more famous person. He'll tell People Magazine one day he worked with the renowned author Armitage Hux."

"Oh, for Christ's sake."

"I know his game." Phasma had paused. "But he's also not bad at all. The acting school money wasn’t entirely wasted.”

The sound of the barista calling out his drink tore him away from his reflection on that particular conversation. “Uh, Armando?”

Whatever. “Thanks,” he said, stuffing a dollar bill into the tip jar before heading back out into the cold with Phasma. Better than a request for an autograph, he’d always insisted, but the sudden thought occurred to him that maybe nobody here knew who he was anymore, and that was such a frightening thought to him that he nearly tripped over his own feet and dropped the latte.

 

 

They’d rented the basement of Our Lady of the Rosary’s Catholic Church for the next two weeks, advertising the experience as ‘an intensive and minimalist theater project’. In reality, there just wasn’t the money for a more high-tech practice space, or a longer duration—Hux wasn’t really trying to pour his savings into this. The basement had space and chairs, and a coffee table, and a crucifix that hung slightly crooked, as well as posters around the room that suggested anything was possible through the Lord. Hux could only hope so.

“No swearing,” Phasma reminded him as they arranged the chairs into a circle for their read-through, a teasing smile on her face. “This is a house of God.”

“No promises.”

Hux sat himself down on a metal chair that was so cold he felt his ass going numb within five minutes. He didn’t even bother to take off his coat. It would have been nice if he could have emerged out of somewhere, maintaining his status as a mysterious, superior figure, but there wasn’t anywhere to go except the bathroom, so he just scrolled through his emails on his phone as the actors began to stream in and settle themselves on the icy chairs.

“We’ll try and get the heat looked at down here,” Phasma said to them, reassuringly.

Ten a.m. exactly, and Kylo Ren strolled in just as Hux shut off his phone and shoved it in his coat pocket. Hux opened his mouth to speak, but then shut it as Kylo sat down and scooted his metal chair across the floor, and the noise was like a car being crushed at a junkyard. He waited a beat, then spoke.

“Everyone made it on time, which I’m happy to see. I don’t tolerate lateness. I don’t give much of a, hm, I don’t really care if you show up with Starbucks or snacks or whatever so long as you’re on time. Are we all clear?”

Murmurs of assent. Hux chewed on his tongue for a second, then continued.

“As Phasma said in her email to you, this is two weeks long, and we’ll meet every day for at least two hours, more on the weekends. Today and tomorrow, and next Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be here more like four or five. Are we all clear?” 

Yes. Everyone was clear. Kylo Ren made a face like he was trying not to laugh. 

“We’ll do a reading first today and then start blocking. No need to waste time. We’ll take a half hour break at noon.” Hux shifted in his seat. “Everyone’s read this before, yeah? In high school? College?”

If anyone hadn’t read it, they weren’t speaking up—nobody wanted to be the one to draw Hux’s attention, at least not by starting off on the wrong foot with him in the first ten minutes. But probably they were telling the truth. Phasma had done a good job picking them out. Besides Kylo Ren, just about all the actors she’d found were mostly college students home for winter break, along with a few retirees looking for something to do for a little while to break up the monotony of the day. Despite some of the uncertain pronunciations of the Shakespearian language, nobody fucked up royally, so they had probably glanced at this before. Nobody was hamming it up like crazy, either. Hux found himself relaxing slightly as the group made its mostly-confident way through the play. 

“Did you do that on purpose?” he asked Phasma during the allotted ‘lunch’ break—no food was being provided, though anyone who wanted to could walk three minutes to the end of the block and buy a taquito at the 7-Eleven if they hadn’t brought a lunch. Nobody had, so it was just the two of them in basement again. 

“Do what?” The way she was smiling suggested she knew what he meant, and had indeed done it on purpose.

Hux sighed. “Cast Kylo as the literal ass?”

She drew a bag of crackers from her silver purse and just kept smiling.

To be fair, it was a good move, even if Kylo couldn’t quite see the private humor in it. He read the part of Nick Bottom well, effortlessly, really. Because this was a ‘minimalist’ production, he wouldn’t be getting a full donkey head, which could have been pretty funny—cover up some of that famous face—but just a pair of modified Easter Bunny ears to make them look more, uh, asinine. 

Famous face. Good-looking face. It was now at the back door of the basement, peering inside as Kylo rapped for entry, a bag of junk food in one hand. 

“It autolocks from the outside,” Kylo explained, pulling off his coat and striding in. “You want any chips or anything, big shot?”

Hux snorted. “Hux is fine, thanks. And no, I don’t.”

Kylo shrugged. “Didn’t want you getting the impression I was, uh, haughty or anything like that. Big Hollywood type. You know. I’m not unaware of like, the imbalance here, with me and the others. I get it. So I’m just hoping to put your mind at ease.”

“I’d think that if you had made a single film, but you haven’t, so I don’t have that impression.”

The smirk slid off Kylo’s face. 

“I’m just trying to be friendly,” he said, not bothering to hide his irritation. “I’m not the one directing a no-budget play in a basement.”

“No. You’re starring in it. I have a phone call to make.”

Hux shouldered past him, and Kylo couldn’t help but snap at his retreating back—

“Who, your agent? Your publicist? No doubt you have a National Book Award to go pick up after practice today.” 

He ignored that, just went outside to make the call and smoke a cigarette, already forgetting about the autolock Kylo had mentioned. Kylo made eye contact with him, standing outside, freezing, and did nothing. Eventually Phasma came and opened the door to allow him back inside.

 

Sunday, there was an opportunity for a truce. Hux had lain awake in bed the night before, feeling shitty about his attitude for the first time maybe forever. Kylo hadn’t exactly done anything wrong—there was just something about him that made Hux’s attitude immediately turn sour. 

Maybe the fact that, despite their closeness in age, it felt like Hux’s star was burning out and Kylo’s was just rising. Maybe. 

The upper floor of the church was still full of parishioners who were leaving mass, so it was hard to hear much. Hux instructed everybody to read over their lines as he plonked a big box of bagels and assorted cream cheeses onto the coffee table, along with a box of black coffee. No cream or sugar. Take it or leave it. 

“Don’t get used to this,” he warned. “I never promised to feed anybody. But this is my first time doing anything like this, and it occurred to me that I should perhaps be a bit more, well…”

He didn’t know what word he wanted. Some author he was. The four college students playing the main entanglement of lovers flicked looks of confusion at one another. Kylo leaned forward in his seat, waiting.

“…friendly,” he finally settled on. An unfamiliar word, one that tasted weird in his mouth. “Help yourselves and you can read quietly to yourselves until the herd upstairs has made its way out. Blocking starts immediately after.”

Maybe there was something a little superior about it, but Kylo smiled, getting up to put himself first in line for a helping of breakfast. His script, Hux noticed, was brand new but already with the spine cracked, like he’d been holding it open all night. 

“I saw your pilot for Squad Boys on YouTube,” one of the college students got brave enough to say to Kylo as they stood together, spreading cream cheese on the bagel halves. “I can’t believe—uh, I hope that’s not out of turn. I just. It was so good! I can’t believe it didn’t get picked up.”

Kylo gave a weird smile, like he had heard a pretty funny joke while trying to choke down a dose of Robitussin. “Same, honestly,” he answered. “But, you know. Maybe next time. Too bad guys like you aren’t running things in showbiz. It’d make my life a lot nicer.”

The guy didn’t quite seem to know if he was being made fun of or not, but then Kylo spoke again. “What’s your name again? Sorry, I’m bad with names. I just know you’re Demetrius, which like, I assume you aren’t called at home.”

“Mitaka,” the college guy answered. 

“Well, maybe if you’re any good in this, Mitaka, I’ll like, give you a call sometime.” Kylo put one of the bagel halves in his mouth and headed back to the scattering of chairs holding two more plus a cup of black coffee, leaving Mitaka standing there, undeniably starstruck. 

Hux rolled his eyes.

The rest of the rehearsal went without incident, and Hux was even starting to feel good. Phasma took the play-within-the-players while he worked with the lovers and the fairies. When Ren made a midday run to the 7-Eleven to get lunch, he offered some to Hux once more and this time Hux selected a bag of peanuts, muttering thanks. 

“A salty snack, to match the ‘tude,” Ren teased. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of malice in it, but Hux stil scowled. _Salty_. Appropriate, he guessed. The sweetness had long left him, he knew, and salt could last forever, preserving whatever you put in it. He munched on the peanuts, vaguely hoping nobody had an allergy. 

Still, a good day, a productive day, and only the second day at that! Everyone seemed cooperative, no one talking back or trying to paste their artistic vision onto the story or anything. Everyone seemed to get alone, and not much to complain about. 

Until he walked out the door of the church basement to head back to his car, slipped on a patch of ice, and felt his tailbone explode.

He was too surprised to feel pain or scream or swear or do anything but sit, dumb, until Kylo Ren came up behind him and tried to hoist him to his feet. “Jesus Christ, are you—you okay?”

“Stop,” Hux tried to rasp out, but the fall had knocked the breath from his lungs. “Stop, stop, it hurts—”

Then Kylo let go and he nearly fell again, and this time he grabbed for Ren’s arm.

“Okay, do you want me here or not?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. Jesus. I don’t know.”

“You hit your back?”

“My tailbone.”

Kylo sucked in some air through his teeth. “That’s always nasty. Okay. You think you can drive? You good?”

“I don’t know,” Hux said, and he was telling the truth. He wished Phasma were still here, but she had just pulled away a few minutes ago, to go buy some more props. Silk scarves to use as fairy wings, Hux remembered, absurdly. “I don’t know. Holy shit, it hurts.”

“Well, they can’t give you a cast for that,” Kylo said, with far too much authority.

“I know that,” Hux hissed.

“I’ll drive you home if you want.”

“I have to sit anyway, whether I’m driving or not.”

“It might be a bit of a distraction if you’re in pain, and then Mr. Bestselling Novel will hit a mailbox or a small child and go to fucking prison.” Kylo looked at him, closer, somehow, like he was really seeing all the features of Hux’s face for the first time. “I’m serious. I’ll take you home.”

“My car,” Hux hissed. “My car—”

“You like, live here this week. Have Phasma pick you up tomorrow. Unless you think somebody wants your Ford Focus that badly.”

Hux snorted. “Fine. I don’t live far, anyway.”

He was mostly embarrassed for Kylo to see how ugly the house was. The paint was faded and dingy, the lawn was mowed in a hurry at the end of the summer and now sat patchy and uncared for, with dead leaves all over. Worse, there was a huge eyesore of the storage unit, plopped in the middle of the yard, slowly accumulating --just—no other word for it—shit.

To Kylo’s credit, he didn’t comment on how run-down it must look in comparison to the house he shared with his parents, which was very nice and modern and looked like something from outer space. He just nodded at the storage unit and asked, “Moving in or out?”

“It’s my dad’s. Well. It’s mine, but for all my dad’s stuff.” Hux gingerly shifted in his seat, trying to figure out the least painful way to get out. “He died two months ago. I’m trying to get it cleaned out.”

Kylo gave a low hmmm. “Sorry to hear about that,” he said.

“Don’t be. He was sick and old and a real piece of work. I think it was a relief for us both. He hated being cared for.” Frank as always. 

Kylo didn’t look surprised. “A lot of people do, I guess. Feels like they’re losing their independence.”

Hux unbuckled his seatbelt. “Yeah, well, he figured if he had to be dependent, he’d bring me down with him. I’d been planning to move to New York around the time he got sick, but he insisted I stay—he didn’t want to be in a hospice or anything. After years of saying he couldn’t stand to be in the same house with me.”

“Maybe he got desperate.”

“Maybe. I think he was rather a hateful old bastard.” Why was he telling Kylo all this? Part of him rather liked how venomous he sounded, how dramatic. How cruel, almost. It was maybe his turn to be cruel, part of him insisted. After everything…

“Well, now he’s gone.” Kylo had clearly decided Hux wasn’t worried about speaking ill of the dead. “You can go to New York now, if you want.” Then, with a flicker of pompous authority—“Though it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Hux smiled thinly. “Maybe you’re better suited for Los Angeles.”

“I’m not sure what I’m suited for.”

“Shakespeare, maybe.”

“Could be.”

Hux hobbled out of the car, refusing to be walked to the door, and watched Ren idle in the driveway until he was sure Hux was inside, then pull away down the street, into the early winter dusk. 

 

 

Despite the fact it hurt like hell to walk, nothing was broken, just bruised. No one dared to say anything when Hux brought a cushion with him to the next day's rehearsal, one of the one with the tie strings that usually went on patio furniture, so he could secure it to the metal folding chair. "More blocking today," he said by way of introduction. "Let's not waste any time. Phasma's taking the play within the play again. I've got the lovers."

These college kids weren't ready for the Globe or anything, but they weren't half bad. At the very least, they knew how to take direction--when Hux told them to do something, they did it, and remembered to do it the next time. He ran them through a few scenes almost like a drill, like a boot camp, over and over.

"I want you to be able to do this by rote. You should be able to do it in your sleep."

They nodded. Hux did not fail to notice that Mitaka shrank a bit under his gaze. The other three students were studying acting or something else artsy, but he had mentioned he was an accounting major that had apparently made a New Year's resolution to do something out of the ordinary, and had found the opportunity to get that particular task out of the way over his January break. Well, at least he had no delusions about this being his big break or anything. Unless Kylo kept talking to him, filling his head with grand ideas. At this rate, Kylo would have him auditioning for the Royal Shakespeare company by the end of this show's run.

Things progressed this way until a chime rang out across the room--sounded like handbells in a church, but tinny-- and Kylo drew his cell phone from his pocket, striding away to answer it in privacy.

"Hang on, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Hux snapped, half-rising before he remembered how much that hurt. All activity in the basement stopped instantly. Phasma didn't look worried, exactly, but her face was a completely expressionless mask as she waited. The chill in the air was now figurative as well as literal.

Ren tossed him a look that was a cross between you-wouldn't-understand and you-get-it-don't-you. "I need to take this, it's my agent."

"You're already in the middle of something else. If it's not a priority for you, you'll be replaced."

Hux was aware of how feeble that threat was--if Kylo's agent had another commercial or something, he'd actually make some money, and wouldn't have to spend the remainder of the two weeks in a freezing church doing Shakespeare for free. Sure enough, Kylo just shrugged flippantly and kept walking, until he was down the hall, out of earshot. But never let it be said that Hux was going to let some Hollywood wannabe step all over his production, regardless of how dinky.

"Any of you try that," Hux warned from his perch on the cushion, "And I'll have you out on your ass faster than you can blink." He turned back to the group of college students. "Again. We're running that scene again."

The machine slowly cranked back to life, tentative. There were a lot of looks being exchange, but Hux ignored them. He barely listened to the college kids, thinking instead of how he was going to replace Kylo, he’d have to talk to Phasma about it after rehearsal—

Things ground to a halt again when Kylo reappeared, his enormous arms crossed over his chest. The look on his face was oddly frozen, like he’d gotten a round of Botox while he was out in the hall, and his cell phone was nowhere in sight.

“Well?” Hux asked. “Do you need anything else from me before you blow this Popsicle stand?”

Kylo cleared his throat.

“If you haven’t replaced me yet, I’ll be here to finish the show.”

This wasn’t the answer Hux was expecting. “Do you plan to interrupt any further?” he scolded, like he was talking to a six-year-old who had cried himself out of a tantrum.

“No. I don’t.” Kylo didn’t even sound angry. He just sounded resigned. 

“Then go back to Phasma. If I see that phone out again, or hear it, and it’s not lunch break, I’ll nail it to the goddamned wall.” 

Kylo said nothing, just loped, slump-shouldered, over to the area of the basement where Phasma was working with the play-within-a-players. The Wall and Thisbe exchanged looks, and Helena stifled a nervous giggle. But as always, though everybody had to be wondering what that was all about, nobody said a word. Hux could only imagine the college kids posting this to Facebook or Tumblr or whatever. _That Kylo Ren got his ass handed to him at community theater practice!_ Still, Hux had to wonder what had happened over the course of that conversation. It couldn’t have been good news. 

“You have an aspirin?” Hux asked Phasma as the players streamed out of the basement into the parking lot once practice was over. 

“Literal pain in the ass?”

“You have no idea.”

Phasma opened her purse and pawed through. “I might only have Ibuprofen.”

“I’ll take anything at this point.” 

She withdrew a bottle, shook it soundlessly. Nothing inside. Hux groaned.

“You’ve gotta be f--”

“I’ve got it.”

Kylo. 

“Today was a bit of a headache,” he went on, kind of stiffly. He sounded like he was flubbing a Tylenol audition. “Well, more than a bit.”

“You and me both,” Hux answered. “Is that how you act on a professional set, Kylo?”

“This isn’t a—”

“ _I don’t care that this isn’t a professional set_!” Hux exploded, not realizing he was so angry about it when this really, really didn’t matter, it really didn’t, why was he so upset, why why why? Why was he acting like this play was a matter of life and death? There was no stopping the hot stinging flood of reprimands now that he had started. “I don’t give a good goddamn! I would have thought you, you of all people, would appreciate that I’m giving my very all to run this like a professional production, and not like a kid’s summer camp!”

“Hux,” Phasma said quietly. “It’s okay.”

“I’m trying my best,” he said, not sure if he was telling Phasma this or Kylo or telling himself. Kylo, for his part, looked like he finally understood something and was trying to contain it. Phasma just looked concerned.“I’m trying—”

“Hux, I know. I know.” Phasma sighed. “Look, I’m going to go and get the last of the props, all right? And then they’ll all be purchased and we won’t have to worry about it. I’ll text you later tonight.”

He nodded, and as Phasma headed out the door to the parking lot, Kylo asked quietly—“She’s getting all this out of her own pocket?”

“I’m paying her back. She offered to run around for them, especially now that I can barely stand. Are you giving me aspirin or not?”

“You’re a real ray of sunshine, you know that?” Kylo dug in his messenger bag. “Jesus. Here.”

Hux took them dry. “Dare I ask what that phone call was about?” he asked. 

“None of your business,” Kylo snapped, his face suddenly red. 

“Can I at least ask if it’s going to affect the rest of the play?”

“Your play is going to be fine. I’m not going anywhere. Ever, probably. I’ll finish it out for you. I’m not. I’m.” Hux put his hands on his hips and said nothing, knowing that Kylo seemed bursting to talk about it with someone, anyone, even a stick in the mud with a bruised butt and a piss-poor attitude. “I’m not—my agent isn’t renewing my contract.”

Hux stared at him, uncertain. “Beg pardon?”

“I had a three-year contract with my agent, and he got me work but nothing ever came of it, and it expired a few months ago. I thought maybe that was for the best, you know…” He ran a hand through his hair, looking around at everything and nothing, his eyes refusing to settle on any one point of focus. “I thought a little time back home, back with my parents, would renew me, and then I could get another contract and start over. But no. He doesn’t think I’m a good investment. So now this play, this fucking bargain bin play you’re doing, this play I’m not making a damn cent off of and only got some bagels to be in, is the best thing going on with my career right now.”

Hux held his breath, completely lost for words, and then—Kylo started to laugh. Like, losing-his-shit level laughing, completely red in the face, hardly able to breathe. The way people laugh in viral YouTube videos, the way people laugh when they’re high. He made a childish pig-snort when he tried to inhale and it just made him laugh harder. Hux couldn’t help but start laughing too, it was so out of place and so infectious, here when he was expecting Kylo to flip the coffee table over or scream at him or…or something. He looked so young and pretty when he laughed, somehow, even doubled over, even ugly-laughing he looked gorgeous. Hux would have hired him on the spot for any ad, for any TV show. 

“This is honestly unreal,” Kylo finally said. “This is completely, stupidly unreal.”

“More talent for me, then. Might as well retain what I have.”

“Why do you keep doing this?” Kylo asked. “Seriously, what is your deal?”

Hux frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“One minute you’re threatening to nail my phone to the wall and the next you’re telling me how talented I am. Do you hate me or not?”

“To be fair,” Hux sniffed, gathering up his bag and his cushion with the ties on it as he made his slow and careful way to the door. “Those two events occurred pretty far apart.”

“Answer the question, Hux.”

Hux stopped in the doorway. “I don’t hate you. No. I just don’t tolerate….”

There were a lot of things he didn’t tolerate. Any loss of control. Any feeling of helplessness, of being stuck. Nonsense, as he always said. He didn’t tolerate nonsense. 

“…diva behavior?” Kylo suggested.

“I suppose,” Hux said, his jaw tightening as he forced the words out. “I suppose there was some diva behavior out of me today as well.”

Kylo smiled. “You don’t say.”

Hux pushed the door open, and Kylo caught it so it wouldn’t slam back in their faces. “Look, I’m very used to working alone. I got this insane idea to do a play, just to be around creative people…”

“Just to boss around creative people, you mean.”

“Directors should be particular about details.”

“Let me get technical on you, since you did it to me,” Kylo said. They were out in the parking lot now and it was so cold that Hux’s breath poured out in a hazy cloud around him. The cushion started to slip out of Hux’s hand and he hitched it up so he could keep it from falling to the dirty gravel. “You haven’t actually directed anything yet. You don’t even have anything to put on your director resume until next week.”

Hux inhaled, then let out a long sigh so another cold cloud.

“I’ll give you that.”

Kylo snickered. 

“You good to drive? I’d hate to think of you _suffering_.” Ren tucked his hands into his coat pockets, the wind moving strands of hair across his face. “Crashing into some ditch because your ass pain was too much.”

It was late and Hux was tired. He wanted to go back to his awful ugly house and ease himself into bed and sleep for days. He wanted to stop having this conversation, alone in a church parking lot with this failed actor, in the below-freezing air, under a horrible blinking streetlight that provided no warmth and barely any light, with his back and bottom still screaming sore. 

“I’m fine.”

“Can I ask something personal?”

A jolt of panic poured down Hux’s throat, but he tried to keep his expression neutral. There was a reason he wasn’t an actor, though, and Kylo smirked at the look on his face. “Look, nothing that personal. I just—are you and Phasma, like, an item?”

“Oh, that’s—no, we’re not. We’ve been friends since our shitty, unruly childhoods. Think Harper Lee and Truman Capote.”

“Modest comparisons.”

“She’s great. But we’re not fucking or anything. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“You’re so damn brusque,” Kylo complained. “The way you talk, Jesus.”

“Look,” Hux answered. “I appreciate frankness. Just—I need honesty, I need directness. And I hold myself to that same standard. Regardless of what I’m being told. I just want directness.”

You’re not going anywhere, his father had told him, and he’d hated it, because he knew it was true, he could dump his dad in some shitty hospital and never look back, but wouldn’t, and he didn’t. It was a relief in a way that his father hadn’t tried to be passive aggressive; he could hate him more simply and clearly that way. 

Kylo took his hands out of his coat and rubbed them together, trying to warm them. “Yeah?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I--”

But Kylo’s half-warmed hands were on either side of his face now, pulling him into a kiss that was sudden and sloppy but certain, positive, wanting and unexpected, his breath so hot against his cold chapped mouth.

When he drew back, Hux let out a rushed hot breath, half feeling like yelling and half feeling like laughing.

“Is that how you act on a professional set?” he asked again.

Kylo grinned.

“Consider it material for the next book.”

 

*

By opening night, Hux was able to sit without thinking about how much it might hurt, which was a damned good thing considering that he kept shifting in his seat with anxiety, watching the college students and retirees and the single professional actor that he had coached for two weeks nail one line and then the next. As if the lines were monkey bars that they’re swinging from in the dark, they followed one and then the next, Hux praying that the next one will be there and the whole thing won’t slip or stumble. It didn’t. 

At intermission, which they’d decided to hold after the third act was done, he went to the men’s room and splashed about a gallon of cold water on his face.

When he left, he noticed a line for the women’s room trailing out of the restroom itself, into the hallway. Not that this was like getting sold out on Broadway, he knew this wasn’t _Hamilton_ , but there was a healthy attendance at the community college’s Jacoby and Sons Realty Center for the Performing Arts--probably two thirds of the auditorium seats were filled. That was probably mostly from the combined star power of Kylo and himself—such as it was-- as well as Mitaka’s enormous, incredibly enthusiastic family, who had come out in full force with flowers and hadn’t stopped taking photos on their phones from the moment he had stepped onto the stage. 

“You think there are any talent scouts here?” Phasma joked when he returned to his seat.

“Do NFL scouts go to middle school pee wee games?”

The fourth act began, Kylo adorned with grey rabbit-but-we’re-calling-them-donkey ears and floral garlands, the college senior who’d been cast as Titania doing a bit of method acting, as she appeared to have fallen in love at first sight with the literal model that she was asked to dote upon in this scene. Once more, Hux couldn’t help but be struck with how the eye just stayed on him, how comfortable he seemed onstage, how….

After the kiss in the parking light, after Hux had driven home, he’d parked and, not even taking off his seatbelt, pulled out his phone. Stabbed in a text message to Kylo with two cold thumbs.

_Your idea of good manners is absolutely unbelievable, you know. A gentleman would at least buy the object of his interest dinner, at least._

The response had come not a minute later.

_Sounds like you’re angling to be asked._

_We work together._

_Jesus, Hux_

Then:

_Not at a damn office or anything, and not for any money. But we can get dinner after opening night, if you haven’t killed me by then._

Hux had smirked at that.

_Deal. If I see you on your phone at any point tomorrow I will throw it out in the parking lot._

No need for Hux to think he was going to lighten up on Kylo, at least until the show was over.

He hadn’t given any indication that anything had happened at rehearsal the next day, or the next, or the next. But he hadn’t stopped thinking about the kiss, either. And hadn’t stopped texting Kylo, half-flirting, half-bullying. 

Onstage, Kylo feigned sleep as the love spell was lifted from the fairy queen. 

_I might stick to modeling_ , he had texted Hux a few days before.

_No career in Shakespeare for you?_

_At least I had work modeling. In New York. Maybe I’d see you there._

_Invite me to your penthouse when you make it big._

_Are you determined to live like in squalor like a real writer should?_

Hux had smirked at that, too. 

_Who knows._

The main plot of the play wrapped up with Kylo springing awake, alone, the stage all his. The ears gone, he was left with fake flowers around his temples, around his neck. _I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream._

Hux had resolved to clean the house up and sell it, the sooner the better, and then what, who knew. Maybe stay in town. Maybe New York, an apartment with a good view of whatever billboard Kylo’s chest would get plastered onto one day soon. Tonight, after the applause, after the flowers, after all that stuff—a meal at a diner with an actor, as a director.

**Author's Note:**

> Holy cow, my first bang! Thanks so so much to all the mods for keeping everything on track and moving smoothly and keeping everyone updated so regularly. 
> 
> This work was beta'd by [mints4friends](http://mints4friends.tumblr.com/), and what an amazing beta experience I had. Thank you SO much for the comments and for combing out the little knots and tangles. A true shining star you are!
> 
> The accompanying art was done by [kyberpunk](http://kyberpunk.tumblr.com/). You can find it [ here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10823442)! It is SO AMAZING and you should press your eyeballs against it at ONCE. Thank you!!


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